Weight Loss and exercise

@UpDownAround: I could not find hushpuppies in the store. So I will have to see how to make them at home. It looks like these will be easy to make. I just have to purchase corn meal. It has been a long time since I have used corn meal.

Well, I had to initialize my watch. So I suspect I made about 5,000 steps today. I walked at a moderate pace for about a couple miles. I will use 95 calories a mile, so I have burned approximately 190 calories. This together with my new baseline of 2,820 calories makes for a target of 3,010 calories. Yah, right! I may have to establish a more realistic baseline, like something around 2,500 calories. With exercise, a likely target would turn out to be up to 2,700 calories. I think this may be more doable to me in the future. Anyways, I have consumed 2,780 calories. This is 240 calories short. I simply cannot consume anymore food. I used some high calorie foods, and ate until I could not eat anymore. So this is my highest in calories, and will remain so. I would have to resort to fast food in order to do better than this. I am too lazy to make any higher calorie foods like fried breaded chicken, together with good rich pasta sauce, and with allot of melted cheese on top. This would be expensive too. Yum!

I made a new dessert. I made a fruit compote to pour onto lemon cake. Homemade whipped cream tops it off. The compote is made in my case by taking a cup of blueberries, placing them in a pan with a small amount of water, adding a couple tablespoons of sugar, and then simmer in order to reduce it to a syrup. The berries will soften and break up while simmering. I use a potatoe masher to hasten this process. The sweeter kind of biscuits and angel food cake both can work too. The syrup itself will amount to about 175 calories.

MFP calories 1,034 Water intake 33oz

I decided to start intermittent fasting. I’m doing the 18/6 one. Where you fast for 18 hours and then eat for 6 hours. I plan on eating just two decent size meals a day. I plan on having my first meal at 12:30 and my second meal at 6:30PM. Today I took my geodon at 6. By 7:30 I was ravenous. I had no food though, and no option to go on break. All I could do was wait it out. My hunger actually went away, and I was fine until 12:30. I had some Taco Bell that was 580 calories. We are going out to dinner. I plan on getting the steak entree that has 640 calories. So total it will be 1,200 total.

I just want to try this out. I’ve heard it’s healthy, safe and works great for weight loss.

Total calories consumed versus total burned is what works. Meal timing has no effect, but if the eating schedule of IF makes it easier to stick to the goal then it helps you lose weight.

Walked 7 miles. Edited to accept only 40 calories per mile for 280 total.

1867 calories, some actually from yesterday.

I will weigh in the morning. My guess is 158 and change.

Looks pretty reasonable to me. Your approach is better than all out fasting. This is healthier and I believe can accomplish as much. FWIW

Oh on top of the crap week I’ve been having. I went to my primary doctor last week. My stomach gets upset all the time. She had me go to the lab. The nurse called me Tuesday and said my doctor recommended based on my labs that I start a gluten free diet. I’ve been doing better eating healthier. I never planned on doing gluten free. I’m so stressed right now. I’m trying to relax and use my coping skills. I had a nice shower.

MFP calories 691 Apple Watch steps 2,736
Water intake 50.7 oz

This will make the construction of your meals more interesting. Hang in there !

I made 4,739 steps. I walked 1.27 miles. Since I have reset my watch, I am getting calorie assessments that are way off for now, so I will use 100 calories per mile. This amount to 127 calories. I have changed to a more doable base amount of calories. I chose this figure to be an even 2,500 calories. I just will gain weight more slowly. Besides, my first order of business will be to halt the weight loss. So together with my exercise, this makes for a target of 2,627 calories. I have consumed 2,668 calories. Not too bad. Tomorrow, I want to make hushpuppies. It looks easy enough.

Until I can either get this watch of mine to be more accurate, or find one that is, I am thinking of using those charts of calories burned. This is where my walking speed together with my weight provides the calories I have burned. I suspect when I start running, and the watch learns my fitness level, the watch will be much more accurate. Now this is probably based on an average fitness level. I think this means I will be understating my calories burned until my fitness level improves. I may mess with the numeric value of my fitness level on my watch to see what happens.

Thank you. I realize I’m going to have to do gluten free. I’m up right now with an upset stomach
12:43 AM CST

158.6 this morning, so my guess was a good one. If I exercise today, it will probably be swimming.

I weigh 173 pounds. Sometimes it is surprising to me how much my weight bobbles up and down. I do not think it has happened this much in the past. I do think 171 is a bit too low for me. I will walk a couple miles today at a leisurely pace here at my townhome complex. Otherwise, I may remain inert today on the sofa. My depression is being still difficult to manage.

Thanks UpDownAround and Tucson. I’m a big believer in calories in vs calories out. Fasting for 18 hours actually makes me less hungry. I think it’s working out pretty well. At least based on these two days. If I’m going according to last Sunday, when I was 163, I’ve lost 4 pounds. I’m pretty sure its just water weight. I weigh 159 now. I’m glad to be below 160 again. I really want to break this cycle of losing and gaining the same 10 pounds.

Slightly over an hour of swimming non stop. Accepted the 350 calories without editing; I am not using the highest exertion entry because I am not swimming at the highest exertion level, but I think the level of exercise is still pretty high.

1944 calories to come in slightly under goal, but I pushed 143 into tomorrow. I still have goal before exercise pushed back to 1600 trying to drop a little bit. I am not sure if I will paddle tomorrow or Sunday, but will likely have no problem with calories rolled forward until then.

I will weigh on Sunday.

Today has been interesting. I made 9,017 steps. I went out to a running track to calibrate my foot pod. Then I walk/ran for three quarters of a mile, which is three times around the track in lane 1. Before this, I walked over a mile around my townhome complex. I am still working on my watch, so I have to personally estimate the calories at 100 per mile. This comes to about 333 calories from exercise. Using a baseline of 2,500 calories, this makes for a target of 2,833 calories. I have consumed 2,722 calories. This is is the best I can do.

I am beginning the routine of alternating my walking with shorter periods of running. In time I will be able to carry this through for a mile. My best times were on my last quarter of mile. I averaged 5.1 mph. My average heart rate was 145 bpm. Nice. I have not done anything like this in weeks. I will eventually get there. One of these months into the future, I will be able to run for a straight mile.

On a few recent walks I have experimented with a few short runs. Yesterday afternoon I did some knee bends in he pool in about 3.5' holding the edge of the pool. I don't think it is in the cards; both running and knee bends were painful. Maybe beach running, but I don't get to the beach often enough to make a difference. Kind of a bummer; I enjoyed running before my knees tore up and I had surgery. Five years ago, I was running 6+ miles at a time, 3 times a week. I even did a non stop, running all the way half marathon.

When we stayed in a hotel back in early June, I did the elliptical early in the morning and that was fine. I don't belong to a gym, though. I might join when Planet fitness does their next drive. They just finished one, but I didn't think I would use it until fall or winter. During their membership drives, they offer a $1 initiation fee, $10 a month to use a single location but you don't get to use the non exercise stuff (massage chairs and that kind of thing). There is one near my office. I could get up change into gym clothes, go work out, shower and change for work and go in. I don't have to dress nice for my job, so in the winter it's jeans. Right now it's shorts.

“...I was running 6+ miles at a time, 3 times a week. I even did a non stop, running all the way half marathon.”

I knew it! You are WAY better shape than I am. Right now, I cannot run more than a tenth of a mile at a time. I think I have some knee problems. Perhaps I need to build up my muscles there before seriously considering running on a regular basis? I imagine pool time can help. I also been having trouble meeting my calorie targets. So I will run/walk every two days. I still will keep my calorie count up there in what I consume every day. Then I will move the overage of one day to the shortfall of the next day. This will also help my knee situation. I will make this work one way or another. Also, for the time being, I will not walk long distances. I will frst warm up for a quarter of a mile. I will then walk and run on the running track up to two miles. My goal here is to increase the time that I can remain running.

BTW I weigh 173 pounds today.

You left the "five years ago" part out. The following Feb I pulled up lame and couldn't run and started lazing around and eating. April (4 years and 4 months ago) I had my knee surgery and got introduced to opioid pain killers. I ballooned back up and stayed heavy until last summer. A year after the knee surgery I had an attempt at getting healthy paddling the kayak, but went at it the wrong way and tore up a shoulder. More surgery and more pain killers. About 16 months ago, I had a bad systemic arthritis flare and was using a cane for a while. that was something that contributed to me getting serious about weight loss. So I lost a lot of it, but it does come back quicker if you have been in good shape before. Part of it is attitude. I know it is possible to push myself a lot further, so I do. It's a lot easier to believe in a place you have been before.

Day 3 and I’m still doing good. I had my first meal at 12:30. I had a cheese quesadilla from Chipotle’s. I’m not sure how many calories it had. I put it at 700. For my second meal at 6 I had a rice burrito. Which was 500. 2 decent size meals seems to be working the best in addition to the 18 hours of fasting.

I looked up that quesadilla and what I found a couple of places says 400.

Zero exercise today. Left knee bothering me pretty bad from the experimental knee bends in the pool yesterday. Probably a good thing I am going kayaking instead of SUP tomorrow. It will be kayak fishing with a friend just for the morning, so probably no much exercise. If the knee feels better I might walk tomorrow night.

1602 calories today with none rolled forward, so I resolved yesterday's overage.

Heading out really early AM; will try to get a quick weight but may not.

It pays to warm up before going all out in exercise. Anyway, I made 1341 steps today. I did not exercise. Tomorrow I will. I have consumed 2501 calories. I cannot eat any more. This is a problem. I need to work on something more realistic. Anyway, I will walk and run on the track for at least one mile. Lets see how long I can run before slowing down. The next mile I will walk fast. Lets see how that works out.

MFP calories 1,191 Apple Watch steps 1,843
Water intake 50.7oz

157.4 this morning. Just got back from a 3.9 mile kayak paddle fishing outing. Strava tried to give me over 600 calories. I edited it down to 250. Only a couple of stretches of sort of hard paddling.